CliffsNotes on Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five by Dennis S Smith

Author:Dennis S Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HMH Books

Chapter Six

Summary

Billy wakes up in the prison camp hospital. Both Paul Lazzaro and Edgar Derby are nearby. Lazzaro explains that he holds Billy responsible for the death of Roland Weary. He also divulges a promise he made to Weary—he will kill Billy. He tells Billy to enjoy life while he can.

As a time traveler, Billy knows that Lazzaro’s threat will come to pass. Billy has seen his death many times and has described it on a tape recorder he keeps in a safe deposit box. The tape recorder’s message is: “I, Billy Pilgrim, will die, have died, and always will die on February thirteenth, 1976.” Billy says that at the time of his death, he will be speaking at an engagement in Chicago on the nature of time and flying saucers. As he lectures to the large crowd, he predicts his death—within an hour—revealing Lazzaro’s promise to kill him. He closes his speech with a message that death is not eternal. As Billy leaves the stage, a sniper fires at him from the press box. Billy Pilgrim is dead.

Billy time travels to 1945 Germany. Having left the POW hospital, he listens as an English officer lectures the Americans on personal hygiene. The officer reproaches them for their apparent lack of survival instincts and tells them it is important that they take pride in their appearance. Informing the Americans that they will be leaving the prison camp that very afternoon for Dresden, the English officer describes Dresden as an open city: It is undefended and contains no war industries or troop concentrations. In Dresden, they need not worry about being bombed.

The American prisoners march out of the compound headed for Dresden, with Edgar Derby and Billy at the head of the column. Derby has been elected leader. Billy wears a pair of silver boots he has found, and draped around him like a toga are some azure curtains taken from the Englishmen’s compound; his hands are wrapped in the tiny, fur-collared coat that he carries like a muff.

At the railroad yard, the Americans board four boxcars. The trip to Dresden takes only two hours. A magnificent city, the loveliest the Americans have ever seen, Dresden is the only large German city exempt from Allied bombing. Although air raid sirens go off every day and the people go into their cellars, the planes overhead are always headed for other targets. In Dresden, life goes on in a civilized fashion: streetcars run, telephones work, and electrical power for lighting is functional. Theaters and restaurants are in service, and there is a zoo.

A squad of eight German soldiers meets the boxcars carrying the American prisoners. Two of the guards are veterans who were badly wounded on the eastern front. The other six, boys and elderly men, were sworn into the army just the day before. One of the men has an artificial leg and carries a rifle and a cane. When the Americans climb down, the guards’ apprehensions vanish and they begin to laugh. They have nothing to fear: The Americans are nothing more than disabled buffoons like themselves.

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